City transfers title to former Midtown Tower

Rochester Mayor Thomas Richards on Thursday announced the city transferred title to the former Midtown Tower to Midtown Tower LLC, a partnership of Buckingham Properties LLC and Morgan Management LLC.

"The redevelopment of the Tower at Midtown is truly transformative for downtown and the entire region," Richards said in a statement. "Prior to the Midtown Rising project, the Midtown Plaza and Midtown Tower had been vacant for all intents and purposes. This will breathe new life into our Center City, bringing with it new residents and commercial development."

The $59 million redevelopment project, now known as The Tower at Midtown, will create a focal point of commercial/retail, office and residential activity, the city said. It will create 29 permanent jobs, retain 316 permanent jobs and create 200 construction jobs.

The project is slated to get underway in spring and is comprised of 179 residential rental units and some 160,000 square feet of commercial space on the first three to five floors of the tower and the former plaza area.

"Our redevelopment of the Tower at Midtown is one of the most exciting opportunities that has ever been presented to Buckingham Properties. It represents over a year of very hard work by city officials, engineers, architects and our private development group," said Buckingham Properties CEO Laurence Glazer in a statement.

"The opportunity to transform an entire neighborhood and raise it to new heights does not occur very often…Two years from now, it will be hard to remember the skeletal remains that exist today," he said.

Morgan Management has extensive experience in the ownership and management of high quality, residential communities, owning and operating a residential and commercial real estate portfolio since 1976.

“We are excited about the revitalization of the Tower at Midtown for what it represents for downtown Rochester," owner Robert Morgan said. "We feel that this will be a major improvement in redeveloping a part of the city that was once thriving and will become thriving again, with a live-work-play lifestyle."

The total investment in the Midtown Rising project is more than $184 million, the city said.

Richards had told the Rochester Business Journal in an interview this month that he wanted to complete the deal before Jan. 1 rather than leave it for successor Lovely Warren, the former City Council president, who defeated him when he ran for re-election this year, to complete.

The city had reached a sale agreement in July with Glazer and Morgan. At that time, the deal had been expected to close in September.